Ma Vhenan Suledin
by OnyxDrake
Summary: Moments captured between Inquisitor Lavellan and her Wolf.
1. Where the Blood Lotus Blooms

Where the Blood Lotus Blooms

It drives Cassandra wild with worry, but there are moments when I need to slip away from the encampment, usually in the evenings, weary, bruised and blood-spattered from trying to put an end to this nonsense between the mages and templars. It's a mess, yet we're caught in the middle. I wish I could grab the ringleaders by their lapels, shake them and shout some sense into them. _Look, there's a great big hole in the sky! If we don't fix that, your pathetic differences won't mean a thing_.

Then again, what does one lost Dalish elf know of the matters of shemlen? I'd told Keeper Deshanna we should stay out of their way, let them deal with problems as they see fit, yet she has a point. Invariably their conflicts spill over and our world grows that little bit smaller, more fraught. Deshanna sees herself as being progressive, to do what she can to look after Clan Lavellan's best interests. I may not always agree with her policies, but she has a point. _Had_ a point.

Have they grieved for me? They must think me lost in the explosion that destroyed everyone else at the temple; unless word reaches them of this new supposed Herald of Andraste – one of the People, no less, who now serves the Inquisition. Not that it will. Clan Lavellan has tried to walk that tightrope between the world of the Dalish and that of the shemlen, yet now that I've seen all that I have, I realise their world is so narrow. My heart aches for friends, family, yet in such uncertain times, how can I send word? If I close my eyes, hold my breath, I can still hear the wind sough in the aravel sails, hear the soft snort of halla, or mothers singing to their babies.

 _Elgara vallas, da'len_

 _Melava somniar_

 _Mala tara aravas_

 _Ara ma'desen melar_

If I could, I'd run, I'd vanish between the trees if it weren't for the cursed Mark that ties me to this entire sorry mess. I lie when I tell them the Mark doesn't hurt. I don't want them to know the marrow-deep ache of this cursed magic that has rooted itself in my blood, my flesh. My weakness. Every time we near one of those rifts, the dull agony splinters through me, drags at me so that for that eternity before the rift closes, I fear I may be turned inside out and dissipated like that malignant green light.

I'm a tool, nothing more, a dull-edged weapon wielded by those with no care or understanding that I'm a person, not some shemlen hero hinted at in legends. That they seek my opinion on the way forward sometimes, now that makes me laugh. I've gone from First to prisoner to Herald, all in the space of weeks. Who am I really?

Just a Dalish girl in the wrong place, at the wrong time. Who has absolutely no recollection of what happened between her entering the Temple of Sacred Ashes and the aftermath, when she found herself in chains with an angry Seeker threatening her. I probe at the missing memories, like a crone would with her tongue at teeth long lost. Nothing. Absence. As if some fiend has wielded a blade and excised the moments most important to me.

That I'm the only survivor – outrageous.

That I remember nothing – ludicrous.

Suspicious.

Doubt gnaws at me constantly. What if I'm somehow responsible? All those hundreds of people dead. And it's my fault… My escape from the Fade seems like a dim, bad dream, that with each passing day grows less traumatic as I move further away from the event.

This is a new existence. I am resigned to it, though how we are to close that hole in the sky is beyond anyone's guess. My paltry understanding of magic does not provide any answers, save that it's somehow linked to this pulsing Mark on my hand. If I could be like the fox caught in the snare, who would go so far to chew off his own paw to be free again, I might just do that, save that I lack the courage to do so. Or the foolhardiness. But to be free of this constant, nagging ache...

So far I'm the only one who can close the smaller rifts that have popped up all over the place. I can't disagree with their reasoning that these should not be allowed to multiply and fill the world with the horrors that creep out of the Fade. I'm under obligation.

And there are evenings such as this, where the obligation is heavy, and I _need_ to creep away, to lose myself among the trees and dream that I'm walking among the forested ravines in the northern Marches. That the resinous pine scent I inhale belongs to the trees back home, where the halla are like pale ghosts among the trunks and Mihren has a smile just for me.

I suppose he'll bond with another now that he thinks me dead.

That sorrow cuts deeply, somehow unreal because I've no visible proof.

In my wilder fancies, he'll be astride a hart, and ride into camp. I'll run to him, and he'll pull me up so that I can sit snug behind him. His long, white-blond hair will be free, with owl feathers tied to the end of the tiny braids at the side, and he'll smell of rivers and wild things that perch in trees. We'll ride far, far away from here, where there is no Breach in the sky, and no demons to plague us.

And if wishes were harts, then all of the People would ride.

I am here. A lone Dalish girl in a forest far, far away from home, a lost spirit halla pale between the trees. My once-long hair has been hacked away unevenly, and shaved at the back where a clumsy attempt was made to stitch a wound. I just haven't had a chance to do anything about my appearance.

I lost the owl foot pendant Mihren gave me some time during the chaos at the Temple of Sacred Ashes. I am rootless, wandering, and wondering.

Cassandra will send someone to find me. Last night it was that dwarf, Lace, who's very kind. She always tries to make me laugh, tells me about her family and growing up in Ferelden. The night before they had me followed by one of the Inquisition scouts. He was easy enough to evade.

Tonight I make it as far as the lake's lapping waters, the waterfall at my back. A thick pall of smoke has stained the sunset a ruddy bronze. Blood is caked under my nails, and I scrub with sand until my fingertips feel raw. Yet there is always another stubborn stain, and whether it is real or imagined, I can't tell.

Eventually I sit with my bare feet dipped in the water, the balmy air tickling my skin. There's a pressure in my chest that builds, sticks in my throat and prickles against my eyes. What I'd do to see a familiar face, a caress, a tender whisper. How long must I endure among these bare-faced shemlen?

This evening the lake is placid, the water a mirror that reflects the sky. Blood lotus slowly unfurl, their scent honey-sweet yet underpinned with a rankness that makes me think of death. That which I fear I'll never forget, of blood clotting in the sun, the buzz of flies and the overwhelming miasma of spilled bowels. All that I'd never dreamt I'd experience in the short time since I've left my clan.

He's quiet, I'll give him that. Solas, the other mage in our party. So they sent him to check on me. How long he's been watching me, I can't be certain, because I suspect he moved ever so slightly to inform me of his presence, that he may have been standing a little longer than that. Aware.

He waits for me to acknowledge him, but I won't. Two can play the game. I am not prey to be stalked, a tender halla to the wolf.

The rest had assumed that he and I would find a rapport; yet I've found myself unaccountably on edge around him. It's a hundred and one small things. He's not one of the People yet he's clearly not a bumbling city elf either. His skill in magic use far exceeds mine yet and the few times I've brushed up against his power with mine, I've shied back. I can best only describe it like standing next to a deep, deep well and looking in to see the stars reflected in the cold disc of water far further down than expected. There is no explanation that will suffice in words.

Yet he sat with me those first few days that I was brought from the ruins, when my Mark was still volatile. It was Solas who cared for me, though I remember it not.

And this thought, that he has seen me at my most vulnerable, is a cause for dismay. That perhaps he was the one who wiped my fevered brow with a damp cloth, whispered quiet words of tranquillity to calm me while I raved. Or so I could imagine. I don't want to think that I was ever vulnerable to any, and yet this simple truth remains.

He is not a handsome man, yet there is something arresting about him. Why he painstakingly insists on shaving his head each morning is beyond me. A ritual of penitence, perhaps? He is tall, broad of the shoulder for an elf, though I dare not admit to any that I look.

And he won't go away.

"I know you're there, Solas," I say at last, as the first of the stars prickle against the cobalt sky.

The grasses barely whisper, as he approaches. "Ma falon." He sits not far from me, leaning against an old shem carving toppled from some long-ago monument.

I glance at his feet then resume my vigil across the lake, where small ripples spread out from the lips of fish lazy, just beneath the surface.

"I suppose Cassandra sent you," I say apropos of nothing.

"If it's easier for you to believe that I exist at the beck and call of others, that is fine by me."

"What, no lecture about safety, about the fact that these woods are no doubt crawling with mages and templars?" I can't help but allow an edge of wry annoyance into my voice. "I had that yesterday, from our illustrious Seeker once the lead scout brought me back, and I'm certain to have it again this eve once I decide to return."

"You're an intelligent woman, even if you've left your staff out of reach behind you. I'm sure by now Cassandra is aware that you're not harmless."

I allow my gaze to meet his. There's the slightest curl of amusement to his lips, as if he's beholden to some secret amusement he's yet to share with me.

Just like that, I feel as if I'm sixteen years old again, pouting at Keeper Deshanna when she disapproves of some wild notion I've entertained. He has that same look about him, indulgent, as if he's seen it all before, and I'm just some youngster.

"It's stupid, and I know better." I rise, fish a handful of pebbles from the silty shallows. The stones are slippery in my grasp, and I turn the roundest one until it fits smoothly in my right hand.

I haven't skipped stones since I was a youngster, but the muscle memory is there. It all boils down the flick of a wrist, a particular angle for the stone to bounce against the surface of the water with enough momentum to leap. Mihren often managed eight or nine bounces. I've never managed beyond four.

My first stone sinks below the water with a wet plop.

Unaccountably my hands shake as I ready the second. I turn to the elf. "Must you watch me?"

There's that faint smile again. He raises a hand from his staff, waves at the lake. "Go on. I'm not here. I'm just an illusion. A dream."

"As if." I snort, turn around, yet his scrutiny burns into me nonetheless.

I draw breath, hold, evaluate the distance, tense and release. The pebble flies, and for a moment I'm tempted to think it will follow its predecessor but now.

 _One… Two… Three_ …

The water gobbles up the stone.

"You make it look easy," Solas says as he rises.

"What, you've not skipped stones before?" I ask, incredulous.

He peers at the stones in the shallows, reaches down. The stone he's selected is hopelessly the wrong shape.

"Here, have one of mine," I say and offer him the roundest of my pebbles. "They should either be round or very flat, and you need to put a spin into your wrist when you toss."

Somehow, he manages to arch a single brow – a gesture I've never managed myself. "Very well."

Our fingers brush for an instant, and I'm tempted to claim that there was the slightest spark, but that might just be my imagination.

He peers across the lake, as if staring at something no one else can see, and I'm left awkward, worrying that this is just a foolish venture. I mean, really, standing here with some strange, older elf. He must think I'm childish, idiotic for wandering off when I really shouldn't and in a fit of pique like the ungrateful wretch I know I am.

Then he whips his arm back. The stone skips six times then sinks below the ripples.

When he turns to smile at me, the years of care drop from his features and I see the young man who used to hide behind that solemn mask. "I forget how much fun this is, lethallan."

I don't think I've ever seen him smile like this before.


	2. Dust, Dreams and Ruins

Varric never fails to make me laugh, even though there are times when I fear he's in awe of what he says I represent. The dwarf is, at heart, a storyteller. He can fill the empty hours of our incessant travelling with tales that are often so outrageous that I'm tempted to call him out as a liar. Scratch that. He _is_ a liar. Yet if it weren't for the fact that our own saga, which is slowly unfolding in epic proportions, weren't so bizarre, I'd not give at least some credence to what Varric shares. He has a point, that we are creating the stories that future generations will share round campfires, at dinner tables, in taverns, in nobles' halls. We are shaking the earth from its foundations to the firmament. We inspire, he says, that others may believe that they too can rise and make a stand. Of course the dwarf says it so much more eloquently than I ever will.

We are a motley assortment, and I am often struck dumb with wonder at how the past few months have progressed, that I, Rosala of Clan Lavellan, am at the head of an organisation.

That the designation "Inquisitor" has stuck, that I respond to terms such as "your worship" without batting an eyelid. I will never forget those faces smiling up at me. That they believe where I falter. It is a heavy burden to bear.

To have gone from having to patch my cloak to deciding _which one_ to wear… To have _more than one_ staff to choose from, depending on which threat I suspect I might face in a day… To sit in judgment of shemlen brought before me in chains… To know that anyone using the term "knife-ear" in my presence will face swift retribution.

These are all heady realisations. I understand why some may fear that any individuals within an organisation such as the Inquisition would allow this power to go to their heads, that our power may breed a sense of entitlement. What is power, at the end of the day? The king is only so powerful so long as he has the ability to affect change, and I can well imagine that the rulers of Orlais and Ferelden sit uneasily on their thrones while we upstarts grow bolder, day by day.

After all, they are not the ones bestirring themselves to close rifts, deal with demons and put down the Venatori menace. And they are themselves ill equipped to deal with the threat that is Corypheus.

I have gazed deep into the heart of _that_ darkness, and I saw myself reflected there.

This power to change the world, it eats at me, whispering.

I can remake the world in an image that is kinder. Or I can become like he, who aspires to be a new god. Such a fine line to tread. What has happened to that little Dalish girl who used to wear a crown of flowers at spring's first bloom?

We've sent word to my clan. Such communication that has passed between us is stilted, second hand. Leliana's agents assure me that Keeper Deshanna is pleased by what I've wrought, that she places trust in me that I will make decisions based on the good of all people of Thedas. For now my clan is safe, but I don't know if and when I'll ever return to the Marches. Each time I preside over the War Table, the map is seeded with more conflicts, more points of interest that beg our interference. We are changing the world, as much as we are changed by the challenges we overcome.

I pray to Mythal that one day I will be able to step away from this burden I carry. Mother guide me, hold me among these bare-faced shemlen.

May the Dread Wolf never catch my scent.

The darkspawn wither before us as we explore the ruins of Coracavus. Many years ago the Tevinter Imperium had it this complex built to house prisoners, says Solas – except they hadn't realised at the time that an entrance to the Deep Roads exists here as well. His eyes alight in wonder even as he strikes down the enemy. I cannot share his sentiments, though when I gaze up at the beams of light slanting through the broken roof, at the pillars, and step lightly over the sand thanks to the relentless desert's progress, all I can think is that I'm very far from home.

The sand is driven by the wind, even as it becomes like an ocean, undulating over the land, at turns swallowing or exposing the ruins of ages past. Ruins that are slowly blasted back to the sand from whence they initially came.

Ruins of temples, ruins of homes. It's all the same in the end. It frightens me sometimes to think that when I breathe my last – it's not a case of _if_ but _when_ – these ruins may still stand for many hundreds of years until they too are worn down to sand and dust.

And when I think of home, it's no longer the sway of the aravel that beckons, but my eyrie in Skyhold, with its view of the razor-toothed Frostbacks and a sky so achingly blue it hints at cobalt at the apex of its impossible dome. That I can close a door, and narrow my world to only the walls and windows, and pretend that for the while, no one will say, "Your worship, a moment please?" or gasp, and remark upon the fact that "there goes the Herald of fucking Andraste". I have my fire. I have my thoughts, mostly to myself then, as I wrap myself in dreams of things that were and might have been.

 _Once upon a time, there was a little Dalish girl, and she loved a little Dalish boy_... Oh Mihren. Mother. Father. Cousins. All faces growing indistinct at the edges. With each passing month their memories become more distant.

Yet I am not alone. We are all rare creatures plucked from the herd, gathered together in this unnatural harmony that the Inquisition weaves.

Of all my companions, Cassandra remains steady, and I rely on the human woman far more than I'd have expected I would. Despite her fanaticism, despite her inability to understand that I don't have room for "one more" in my pantheon, we have reached an accord, a middle ground. Yet I've seen her in moments when she's quiet, unguarded. She's a hopeless romantic at heart yet is a fury when her anger is invoked.

Like here, in the ruins of this ancient prison, where her blade winnows through the enemy and spills black blood on the sands.

Our tactic is simple, Cassandra and Blackwall forge ahead, create a wall of steel. Solas and I keep behind – Solas with his barriers, myself providing the cleansing fire. We work in concert, a precarious dance where one misstep spells death, and what few escape our warriors, Solas and I mop up. What strange music we make, of severed limbs and blackened limbs.

It's worked well enough, so far.

Our greatest mistake is arrogance, and all it takes is one fell arrow to slip through between the casting of Solas's barriers.

It doesn't hurt, at first, that is.

Someone's punched me in the back, I think, even as I crumple to my knees, my arms suddenly useless by my sides. My staff clatters to the ground before me, and each motion slows until it happens at a snail's pace. I notice tiny, unimportant details, like the faint green shimmer to the dragonhide grip, or the fact that a small pebble is displaced by my weapon's descent, and skitters across the floor as if possessed of a life of its own.

The pain comes when I try to draw breath. Sharp, blazing pain. That's when I look down to see the barb protruding from my right shoulder. I'm skewered all the way through, and when I suck in air, my lungs fill with liquid that spatters wetly from my lips.

I taste the ocean. This is it. I'm going to die, and I can't bring myself to fight it. It's not a case of _if_ , but _when_. _Falon'Din, guide me. Open the way for me_.

Dimly, I can hear my companions cry out, but their words are muffled, my world fading, failing.

Creators, let this pain go away.

His hands are firm, his voice sharp enough to pierce the darkness. "Stay with me, vhenan! Give another potion, Seeker."

"It's the last." An edge of barely restrained emotion taints Cassandra's words.

It's the last, meaning, that after this, there's nothing much they can do for me.

"She's lost too much blood."

A glass vial is pressed to my lips, the familiar herbal tones of a healing potion sharp in my senses. I choke on the liquid.

"We've got to get the arrow out."

He called me vhenan.

Blessed nothingness swallows me.

# # #

The pain extracts me, starting as mere discomfort but then latching on, making each breath laboured and dragging me from the oblivion. I'm in my tent, on my accustomed pallet, but I'm not alone. Solas rests, propped up against a crate, his head tilted at angle that can't be at all comfortable. My left hand is caged in his, a lazy index finger pressed against the scar that belongs to the Mark. The skin prickles at the contact.

Judging by the stubble, he hasn't shaved his head in days. Does that mean he's been at my side all this time? How long have I been unconscious? So much to do, so much left undone. Panic grips me. I must get up.

I tense, try to move into a seated position, but a sudden, sharp twinge has me arching my back and crying out as fresh agony slices right through me.

"Vhenan!" he says, places cool hands on my shoulders, cradles my neck as he helps me lie down. "You need to rest."

"The darkspawn!"

"Have been dealt with. Hush now." His fingers are cool against my forehead. "You've had a fever. We thought we'd lost you."

"It's going to take more than an arrow to fell me," I whisper. "So. Thirsty." My lips are parched and my body feels wrung out, empty.

Yet he's here. He's always here.

When I think back to those stolen moments in the rotunda, watching him paint those murals of his, blend the colours, and frown over pigments that won't quite obey his intentions. Humouring him when he thinks I can follow the intricate meanderings of magical theory. (Mostly, I'm drinking in his voice, his tone, the music of words.) Then, those hesitant caresses, stolen kisses. Tentative, like he's scared I'm going to bolt or break, as if I'm one of Josephine's little Orlesian ornaments. Like the little halla in her glass menagerie, as she calls it. For weeks we've led this dance about each other since that first kiss in the Fade.

 _Was it even real?_

We don't need words now, as Solas holds the pewter mug to my lips so I can have that first sip of water. His hands tremble.

"We nearly lost you. I couldn't countenance that." He pulls aside a strand of hair that's adhered to my lips and tucks it behind my ear, where he lingers, trailing the length. Embers smoulder in those slate grey eyes.

"Ma vhenan suledin," I reply.


	3. Echoes of the Past

The demons we slay at the ruins of the Elven baths prove tougher than most, and we are beyond weary once we're done. No one complains when I suggest that we set up camp in what was once possibly the antechamber of this ancient ruin; we are too wrung out to stumble our way back to the nearest camp, especially since it's growing dark. The walls will provide some shelter this night.

I can only guess at the function of some of these rooms; it's difficult to tell when all that remains are archways and stonework. What mosaics once gleamed on the walls has long since been lost to time, though Solas assures me they were objects of exquisite beauty.

My Mark pains me more today than it has for weeks, my entire left arm throbbing with a dull, marrow-deep ache that makes me grit my teeth and clutch the affected limb to my chest. I can't bear to be in my armour, yet even once I've shed the vambraces and the rest, I still feel constricted, like my skin's too tight. No one looks askance of me when I withdraw from their immediate circle, to lean against a cool stone wall and close my eyes. My companions' quiet banter soothes me: Cassandra and Varric arguing about the best way to start a fire – Cassandra insulting his intelligence, but in a way that makes them both laugh when he disproves her theory about stacking wood just so; Solas moving on cat feet as he investigates the environs. I don't need to see him to know where he is; his presence is a low buzz on the periphery of my awareness that I feel like sunlight on my face.

So much power, that he keeps wrapped up. Always restrained, reserved, careful, as if he might attract too much attention to himself. It is not my place to ask; it is not polite. The things left unsaid between us: What is it that we have? Where is this going? What will become of us when this is all finished?

That he desires me as a woman is undeniable; when we kiss, his mouth closes over mine, hungry. His fingers grip my flesh, flex momentarily like claws. I have brushed the hard length of him through his breeches. His tongue invades my mouth, tangles with mine, then retreats. We bite at each other, but then pull away, like wild beasts claiming territory but reluctant to cross the last boundaries.

I can't help but compare him to Mihren; I've known no other beside him.

Mihren with his careful, gentle hands. Fingers twined with mine, never still. Sly kisses up my neck and secret whispers for my ears only. Mihren with his secret smile, wicked eyes, but his lips so soft, so gentle. None of this ferocious hunger of Solas's. Mihren knowing we had all summer, all autumn, moving slowly with the turn of seasons.

If I'd had foreknowledge of what would transpire at the Temple of Ashes, would I still have gone?

Solas, however, who clearly needs, who wants, who plunders but then retreats before we can close. I'm no shrinking virgin, I want to tell him, but I'm fearful that I may seem too forward. There are occasions when he's shuttered from me, and "vhenan" becomes "Inquisitor", and those days make me die a little inside, when his gaze is distant and he enfolds himself in silence.

Yet there are days when he smiles, and talks about the things he's seen in the Fade. Or he shares old pieces of lore that rival even Varric's in eloquence. He forgets himself then, and the cares fall from him and soften the severity of his features.

He takes my hand, and we walk a distance from our encampment, and our time is perfect, illuminated in the sunset. He'll cup my face in his hands, and tell me my beauty is that of the star lily. Yet the star lily withers at dawn, cannot grow far from the cold-rushing streams of the Northern Marches. I don't say that. No one has ever called me beautiful before, and I am content with such rare praise.

"Vhenan." That simple word jolts my heart and I glance up at Solas, who's crouched before me. "It pains you, doesn't it?" He reaches out to claim my hand. I can barely feel his touch, as if my limb is wrapped in bandages.

"It's all right," I say.

"You're a terrible liar."

"I don't want to be trouble. It's been a long day. I'll be better for some rest."

He shakes his head, takes my hand in both his, and the rush of his magic is cool water that travels up my arm. "If we could remove this... " Another shake of his head. "It's part of you. I'm afraid…"

"It's stable for the most part, thanks to you."

He meets my gaze. "But for how long?"

"Doesn't matter. We can worry about that once we've defeated Corypheus."

His lips twist into a wry smile but he doesn't offer anything further save to concentrate his magic on the Mark, on my hands, until the fires eating up my arm have been banked, shrugged aside by his power.

"Better now?"

I nod, bite the inside of my cheek. I mustn't cry. Must be strong and not show how relieved I am. My afflicted limb is cool, feels almost normal.

"Come, I'd like to show you something." He takes my right hand, pulls me onto my feet.

Varric and Cassandra pause mid-conversation, cast glances in our direction then continue their discussion. They're discreet enough not to interfere with any "mage-business" as Varric puts it, though how much of that "mage-business" between Solas and I has also resulted in more intimate interchanges, is not discussed with anyone.

Solas holds my good hand loosely clasped in his own; I can pull away any time I want to, but I don't, and in silence we descend the stairs to the open area fronting the water where the baths were once situated. Less than two hours before, a rift still coruscated here, spilling the Fade's more malignant inhabitants. Now, a nondescript brown river warbler investigates the sedges at the perimeter, and a hesitant frog chorus has started its song near the lazy, tea-stained waters.

The last of the sun's rays slant from the west, painting the stonework in gleaming salmon and gold, and the clouds on the horizon are dark and puffy, bruised. The chill autumn wind promises that the next day might be overcast even. I shiver.

He pulls me to him, wraps his arms around me. We don't need words. This close, I can breathe in his scent, honest sweat and something darker, wilder that is uniquely Solas that I will always hold within me and taste when I lie awake at night wondering whether he thinks of me too. What must it be like to sleep with him holding me, fitting his body to mine so that we are one?

Presently, he pulls away, draws me to the gap in one of the archways where we step through to find a short jetty and an abandoned rowboat.

"I wonder who comes here," I say.

He sits against the ruined wall, pats the ground next to him, and I curl into the space beneath his arm.

"Fishermen, most likely. At least until the rift opened and the demons appeared."

"What was this place like before? Who came here back in the day?"

"They were beautiful," he says. "Proud men and women with stars woven into their hair. Their cloaks feathered with the plumage of birds that no longer sing in the wilds. They came here to celebrate life, to reaffirm the pleasures of the flesh. They drank wine from fine, crystal goblets, and musicians played music of such exquisite perfection that to hear it now we'd weep for all that was lost."

"You say it like you were there yourself."

"The Fade remembers," he tells me after a pause, a catch of breath.

I want to ask whether he'll show me, but he shifts so that he can kiss me, the first contact lingering, desperate, like a drowning man after air. Then he steals a hand under my tunic, fingers brushing a nipple – more daring than he's been with me before. We pull away from each other briefly, long enough for an unspoken agreement to pass between us before he allows me to straddle him, to press kisses to his brow, his cheekbones, to nibble at the soft skin under his neck. He is still beneath me, watchful and whipcord tense, while I work my way down his neck to nip at the hollow beneath his throat. I taste the salt on his skin.

Will he? Won't he? How far will I dare to go this time?

I want this; I _need_ this reminder that I still live, that every day I face an uncertain future. Will I be roasted to cinders by an angry dragon? Will I be ripped apart by a terror demon? Will a Red Templar's arrow finish what the darkspawn's didn't back in Coracavus?

I try to tell him this with every lingering kiss, praying that he can taste my desire on my lips, the way I mould myself to him, allow my magic to ripple across his, playful, like the kittens I've seen near the Skyhold kitchens stalking fallen leaves.

He wants me – that much is obvious – that much I've been able to tell from every other encounter. My heart beats wildly with each success, ties unfastened, being able to bare flesh. Our breathing is ragged, and a fire rages through me with its need to consume as his fingers quest into the very secret part of me. I need more.

We reach that crucial moment, where I fear he will hesitate, withdraw into the reserved Solas who hardly dares to hold my hand when others can see, but then he capitulates. We come together, in soft sighs and moans, the resistance worn away, and though there is the initial strangeness of the intimacy after so long, I want to weep feeling him move within me, filling me, completing me.

We are the river water lapping in the shallows, the ragged starlings torn through the sky, the clouds billowing and rolling, the sough of the wind shaking the willows. We are man and woman, moving, burning while the sun loses its life in a last burst of flame orange, and when he shudders into me that final time, I find my release.

For this crystalline moment, suspended in dusk, there is no Inquisition, no Veil torn asunder, no Corypheus blazing in red lyrium-induced malevolence, no disintegrating empire, no squabbling nobles. There is only he and I, tangled limbs, breathing together, dirt clinging to skin, leaves in our hair and dreams in our eyes.


	4. The Fortress of My Heart

Early autumn storms lash our keep, the wind driving rain in diagonal sheets against stone that has withstood the elements for centuries. Winds shriek and gibber, rattling windows in frames and shoving at anyone mad enough to risk the battlements. Rare, clear days, when they come, bring watery sunshine briefly between the relentless clouds.

Would that my heart be as enduring as the stones of Skyhold. I won't fret, I won't let on to the others that it bothers me that the rotunda has been empty this past week that we've returned from the Exalted Plains. A teacup contains the residue of its past contents, fragments of leaves adhering to the porcelain. The pigments have dried on the palette, stiffened the brushes. A folded paper covered in sketched glyphs has been used as a bookmark. Of course I've lingered, late at night when the embers in the hearth in the Great Hall are banked, when even Varric nods over his writing and a sleepy cat yawns, turns on the dwarf's lap.

Events are moving ahead – we will be travelling to the Emprise du Lion within three days. Without _him_. I won't let on how much that bothers me yet there is more than enough to keep me occupied, so that those quiet moments of worry don't creep up on me as often as they might've.

 _He's not coming back_ , despair whispers.

Dorian and I have been talking strategy, how to best complement each other's abilities. We've practised. It's not the same.

Masons are busy with the more urgent repairs before the onset of winter; there's the laying in of supplies in the stores in case the mountain pass is blocked; medical supplies tallied; winter-weight clothing issued. Troop movements plotted. Not to mention the piles of correspondence that simply cannot be ignored. Creators bless Josie for shielding me from all but the most important missives.

Fereldan nobles grumble about the Inquisition encroaching on their land. Orlais courts us with honeyed whispers, trying to gain a measure of our strength. We're called to settle disputes, stick our noses into affairs as far afield as Nevarra, Antiva. We're like a spider on a web. I've said as much at the War Table. Cullen just looks at me, shakes his head. Leliana slides me a smile. Josie hides her amusement behind a page.

All the while there's a hollow ache where my heart beats. I'd keep watch on my balcony if it weren't for the inclement weather (and Josie's justified fears that I might be swept off).

Dorian's perceptive, however, and drags me off to the Herald's Rest in the evenings – and between him and Bull, they conspire to get me motherlessly drunk on most occasions, in addition to losing outrageous bets in games of diamondback and wicked grace. The double-edged dagger is that my sleep is mercifully dreamless, even if I wake the next morning with a ferocious dragon of a hangover.

Other, small hints are clear, for I suspect that Cullen – despite the pressures of his lyrium withdrawals and the preparations for our departure – invites me to play chess. My protestations that I'm terrible at strategy fall on deaf ears when we repair to the library where Dorian presides over our matches, offering awful advice to both of us, often laced with grotesque innuendo. It's difficult to decide who blushes more, me or Cullen. Hardly a moment passes where I'm not in the company of _someone_ , be it Varric talking my ear off or Vivienne and Josie attempting to instruct me on Orlesian etiquette in preparation for my debut at court.

They mean well, and I offer the appropriate murmurs of appreciation, a laugh or a smile at the expected beats of conversation, yet my gaze strays always and my heart constricts.

 _He's not coming back_.

As if aware of my fears, my Mark chews at my arm. _I am here_ , it says with a sharp-toothed grin. Hot compresses help somewhat to dull the ache. _I am not going away_. The magic is impatient, as if it wants to leap from me. Each rift I close dispels some of the magical residue, but with my inactivity, the blighted thing turns and tumbles on itself like a horse with colic, restless.

I will not fear. I will endure.

Endlessly I replay the sequence of events as they transpired on the plains, those foolish mages who were so certain they had the right of things binding Wisdom, and Solas's anger such an inferno that I quailed, stood back as he destroyed them. I could not have prevented their demise even if I willed it, and yet at the time, I felt myself drawn along by Solas's need to lash out, retaliate, even in hindsight, I realise now that my inaction was not the response of a strong leader. I have allowed matters of the heart to overrule my better judgment.

 _Let me never be the recipient of your wrath nor the object of your disdain_.

For an instant I have glimpsed a fraction of Solas's true power, and what I have seen frightens me profoundly. I would never seek to turn my lover into my mortal enemy. I have not spoken to any of my other companions about this either, though I've hinted around the edges of what transpired that afternoon to Dorian. It was an isolated incident, and at the time I don't think either Cassandra or Blackwall was fully cognisant of the deeper ramifications of Solas's actions, how quick he was to the kill. Without visible remorse. The former has no love of mages, in any case, and the latter offers unquestioning support most days. I suspect they'd follow me into the Deep Roads, if need be.

 _He_ returns the day before we're set to leave, not long after the clouds have parted and the breeze makes cat's paws on the puddles in the forecourt. I've run down to see Bonny Sims about some blank rune stones for Dagna when Solas strides through the portico as if he's never been away. It's as if he's just returned from strolling about gathering herbs, though there are small tells that his grief is real, tangible thing – the faint bruising under his eyes, his pallor and the tight set of his shoulders.

Will he feel such visible sorrow when I die? (Because if I'm brutally honest with myself, it is a case of when and not if, considering my line of work.) He is polite yet holds himself back while we talk. No caresses, no public displays of affection (Of course not, what did I expect?). His smile is tight, his gaze is indifferent, and that stings me deeply, though I will not allow my dismay to show. The next time he has to mourn, I tell him, he doesn't have to do it alone. He responds by telling me it's been so long since he could trust someone.

Trust?

"Good day, Inquisitor," he bids me as he continues on his way.

I bare everything to him, and yet he still speaks of trust? I clench my fists at my sides and watch him take the steps up to the Great Hall two at a time.

Cullen waylays me after dinner, ostensibly to go over last-minute arrangements at the War Table, and it's just the two of us poring over the map, moving markers and quietly discussing troop movements so I have an idea of what to expect in weeks to come. Something's come up, and Leliana's been called away. Josephine has urgent paperwork to attend to.

I'm aware of Cullen then, more so than other times. The way his voice echoes, the scent of him – musky, with traces of bitter herbs. His hands are large, spreading fingers on the edge of the table to support himself as he leans over. The spray of stubble on his face, so unlike an elf. The way that scar on his lip pulls when he smiles. His amber gaze that lingers on mine.

He stammers a lot more with the others gone, holds himself in a way that he's as aware of us being man and woman alone, and that's when all the small pieces fit together.

 _Oh_.

 _My heart bleeds for you, Cullen. This is not to be_.

He is a comely man, even for a human. He deserves better than me; I wonder, belatedly, whether Leliana and Josie haven't been conspiring with regards to this evening. I wouldn't put it past them.

Yet once we're done, I allow him to walk me to the door of my quarters, where we talk for a short while about his family back home in Ferelden. He inquires after my clan; I offer vague pleasantries. They're fine. They appreciate the Inquisition's efforts to keep them safe.

I can't help but glance over his shoulder, but the door leading to the rotunda remains resolutely shut and a servant is banking the fire in the hearth where Varric usually sits.

It's time for me to retire.

"Good night, Rosala," Cullen says. "And thank you for your time."

"Only a pleasure," I say.

An awkward pause, and then I retreat up the stairs, glad to shut the door to the Great Hall behind me.

The servants have turned back the covers of my bed, drawn the curtains, and lit the lamps. My suite is welcoming – and empty. Rain hisses against the windowpanes, and I can't help but shrivel a little, knowing that it's the sort of weather that will continue in such fashion throughout the night to provide us with a dismal start to our journey.

No doubt Lynna will ensure that my warmest things are packed; no matter how hard I try, I am still unused to having others care for my every need, as if I'm royalty.

A discreet knock sounds on the door. I stiffen, my pulse hammering.

 _Solas?_

"Yes?" I call, hating the quaver to my voice.

"Inquisitor, would you like us to draw your bath?"

It's Lynna. Bless her.

"No, it's quite all right," I respond. "Get some rest. We have an early start."

"Inquisitor."

The elf is so quiet I don't hear her tread on the stairs. For all I know, she could still be waiting at the door. She might even sleep there, and I wouldn't be the wiser.

I'm perfectly capable of drawing my own water, as much as I appreciate the care, and yet even while I lie back in what will most likely be my last hot bath in weeks, I can't help but feel that perhaps I should have had Lynna make a fuss over me.

My bed, on this last night in Skyhold, is so vast, the sheets icy until I can warm them with my body. The Mark's constant gnawing conspires with my burden of sorrow to keep sleep at bay until I begin to hear voices stirring in the courtyard below.

It still hasn't stopped raining.


	5. Beneath the Uncaring Stars

I should have left him back in Skyhold, immersed in his research, pondering his scraps and remnants, but I can't leave my heart well enough alone, can I? Varric says little, merely raises a brow and sighs at the campfire, shoots a glance at Cass, who continues working on one of her swords while pretending she hasn't noticed. I'm that obvious. My attempts at reading by lamplight are clearly a ruse for the fact that I'm trying (and failing) to appear busy. By this time, Solas has usually retired to his tent more than an hour before, his quietness absolute. He might as well not be there if it weren't for the burden of his magical presence. Two weeks in the Hissing Wastes closing rifts and putting down pockets of Venatori resistance, and all I can get from him is "yes Inquisitor, these are ancient dwarven ruins" or any other minutiae related to our continued exploration.

The silence yawns between us and chews relentlessly, and I am helpless. I may be able to close rifts but I cannot close this distance between us.

And yet…

His unguarded gaze is brighter than the sun, when he thinks I'm not aware of him watching me. We play a game of not caring, of being unaware of the other's regard, masked behind polite, professional conduct.

In pitched battle, we dance in concert, complementing and coherent; we are poised in our perfection, synchronous as others can only aspire. It is easy to believe that the world is at our feet. In unguarded moments, he flashes me a smile, a nod, and my heart soars.

 _Talk to me, damn you_.

Silence suppurates once we return to the firelight and I have no way of gauging whether I should be the one making the first move. _I have brought you here with me, after all._

Cass would not presume to lecture me on matters of the heart and Varric hints at a roundabout way that this cannot remain unresolved much longer, but I'm at a loss as to how I'm to approach Solas. It's not so much as a fear of losing face, but a terror of having him turn his back on me. The end result is that I eventually create the opportunity for him to follow, leaving breadcrumbs in my wake on a night before he retires, because this night I catch his gaze before I am the one to slip away first.

It is neither safe nor sane to wander from beyond the ring of firelight in the wastes at night, but it is a calculated risk I take – not unlike those nights while we explored the Hinterlands. An eon ago. I won't stray far, and I trust in our sentries' awareness of potential threats. It's not like those early days, when the little Dalish girl wilfully courted danger. I know what to expect.

Our encampment is situated on a ridge overlooking a dune field. The moons bathe the landscape in a pearlescent gleam so I can see for miles in each direction. To the northwest lies that peculiar mountain with its distinctive three outcroppings that appear windswept, melted through the action of the elements. Though it's late spring, winter's chill still has the land in its grasp, and I wish I'd brought a coat with me. My Mark is quiet, but the bones of my left arm feel hollowed out after the rift we closed today. Where the Pride demon's whip caught me across my shoulder, the skin is blistered despite the salve Cassandra applied for me.

Granted, I'll be dying of heat once the sun is up. This region see-saws between such extremes of temperature I'm amazed anyone or anything can exist here – yet we've encountered the odd hunter and prospector hardy enough to brave wild beast, relentless sun and thirst.

To the casual observer, this is a wasteland, yet those who know will see life abounding, from the trapdoor spider in its burrow and the rock buntings whistling among the ragged thorn bushes to the hardy fennec and peregrine falcon. Water can be found if one digs in the right places though during the heat of the day, it is better to seek shelter until the shadows lengthen.

I crouch at the edge of the rock and peer down at the scattering of old stone carvings that are the remnants of some dwarven outpost. We should poke about to see why the Venatori have been so active.

Solas's tread on the sands behind me is so light, it's like a ghost whispering across my grave. I bite the inside of my cheek to quell the slight twist of smile that wants to find its way to my lips.

"Is it 'vhenan' or 'Inquisitor' tonight, Solas?" I ask.

He sighs and crouches next to me, close enough that we nearly touch, but not quite.

For a few heartbeats I'm afraid he'll remain silent. "Ir abelas," he allows. "I have been…"

My bark of laughter is without humour. "You're too proud to say it."

"I have been distracting you from your duties."

"You're more of a distraction trying not to distract me," I point out, unable to hide the acerbic edge from my words. I sit back, swing my legs into nothingness, like I would if I were still a child.

"I… I realise that."

He mirrors the way I sit, and we remain so in silence for a long while, watching the stars, merely listening to the wind in the grasses.

"What am I to you?" I ask.

"An unexpected, unasked for delight, vhenan," he answers.

My heart constricts painfully and my breath catches. I have to squeeze shut my eyes to stop the tears from forming. I don't need to tell him how I feel; it should be abundantly obvious. Our fingertips brush, but it is Solas who makes the first move, trapping my hand beneath his palm. His skin is cool, and his magic pushes against mine the way a cat would rub against another.

I can't help myself; I lean into him and he shifts so that he can sling his arm around me like that time when we were at the elven ruins.

I nuzzle into him, breathe in his wildness, the darkness of my dreams.

"Ma manalas," he whispers.

"Ma nuvenin ne."

"Ma sa'lath," he says, the words barely a breath against my ear.

"Promise me," I reply, "promise me that you will not turn your face from me again like you did."

His lips find mine then he kisses the tears that run down my cheeks. "Please don't cry, vhenan."

"I… I can't help it. Sometimes everything… It's all so overwhelming. These moments that we can snatch, these small bright sparks. I want to hoard them so that they never run out, that when times are bleak I can take them out and examine them and remember every instance where it seemed that there was hope."

"There is always hope," he says. "Tel'enfenim."

I choke back laughter, but then he kisses me again, and all my fears flee even though we are seated upon the edge of a precipice. Somehow, I find myself on my back, pinned beneath his weight, his thighs between mine and his hardness pressing against me. Small stones might bite into my skin, but I'm more intent on the way he steals my breath and the way his treacherous fingers find their way to the lacings of my breeches.

My clothing becomes too constricting and when I'm a little too rough shrugging out of my tunic, I tear fabric – but I'm past caring. When he takes a nipple into his mouth, he gifts me with the whisper of teeth against skin, and the zing of pleasure travels to other parts.

I can think of dozens of reasons why this is not a good idea, but rational thought flees with each sigh, each low groan as we bare yet more flesh. Our coming together is desperate; we clutch at each other, strain at the limits of our endurance in a conflagration of desire and magic, and I swear my damned Mark flares when I come, bathing our little corner in sudden wash of emerald.

Afterwards, we lie tangled, sand adhering to our skin, flesh cooling, breath still ragged.

"Solas?" I murmur.

"Mmm?"

"What's to become of us?"

Because I can't ever see myself bringing him to Clan Lavellan. If I'm brutally honest, I can't see myself returning home either. I've been changed, tainted. My world grown so much bigger, restless among the shemlen and their troubles. The Dalish girl is a broken bird caught in a hunter's snare, and even if she's released, she'll never fly again.

Lying here, with my lover, beneath the uncaring stars, I don't see a happily ever after – not in the way our keeper would tell the stories of bonded mates. What Solas and I have is like the wind stirring the grass – it is ephemeral.

We are caught up in a bigger story, one that does not care that we have sought comfort in each other's arms for this short spell between demons, blood and madness.

He sighs, pulls me closer. "Let's not concern ourselves with tomorrow, please, vhenan." There's a tremor to his muscles that hasn't been there before. "I don't want to think about what the day will bring, nor what will follow in weeks, months to come."

"Why do you love me?" I ask. "For that matter, why do I feel the way I do about you? You're like a sickness, one that I welcome gladly – a fever to ravage my body."

"Vhenan."

"And, I worry… What will happen. Will this fever run its course? Will we become strangers to each other one day?"

He crushes me to him. "Hush now."

"Solas?"

He's still, doesn't breathe. Tense.

"Will you sleep with me in my tent tonight? I don't want to be alone. I want to wake up with your arms around me. I want to pretend that this is forever. Even if it's not."

"And what of the Inquisitor?" he says.

"Sod the Inquisitor. This is for Rosala."

"Now you sound like Sera." But he laughs, tightens his embrace, and I know he's acquiesced.


	6. Queen of Dog-roses

Who builds a chateau in such an isolated area in the first place? Then again, there is no accounting for the whims of the Orlesian nobles – that much has been made abundantly clear to me through my dealings with them. The Dalish girl I used to be would've been affronted by such a conspicuous display of ostentation that we discover within the grounds of Chateau d'Onterre that lies within the heartlands of the Emerald Graves. Here all one needs to do is trip over remnants of my people's past if one doesn't look where one is going.

Except we don't have the luxury of touring this region at leisure. Time is running out. We may have bloodied Corypheus's nose, but Samson is still at large and in command of his Red Templars, and each encounter we've had so far with these red lyrium-crazed monsters has left us battered and broken.

I barely have time to heal when I sport fresh bruises and lacerations upon old injuries. If it weren't for Solas's barriers, we'd all be dead ten times over. He's even shown me how to cast barriers of my own, but I'm not nearly half again as proficient as he is. Yet here is no such word as "can't" in our vocabulary. We endure, because I know what lies in store for us if we fail. I've seen what becomes of my companions when the red lyrium eats them from the inside out – a gradual, creeping red death that infests their bones and corrupts their flesh until nothing remains.

Every time I feel my limbs grow leaden, my will flagging, I recall the scarlet haze tainting my vhenan's eyes in that other Redcliffe that still haunts my dreams, his weary resignation for having failed utterly in his purpose in a world torn asunder.

Not while I draw breath.

"I don't like this place," Cass says as we pause outside the gates of the chateau. "It's far too quiet."

"Abandoned, more like," Thom says. "See the rust here at the hinges." He is eager to prove his worth, this human. Yet for all he's served the Inquisition so selflessly, bled for our cause, I simply cannot conceive of leaving him to his fate at the hands of the Orlesians. No matter how much we are judged for interfering with the course of their law. No matter the crimes he committed. He is no longer Blackwall, yet that name keeps straying to my lips. I believe in second chances. No one is beyond redemption.

What good can a dead man do to make reparations for his sins?

My judgments have not made me a popular person in some circles. Long ago, that Dalish girl would have cringed and said whatever people wanted to hear, just to keep them happy. Now, not so much. It's not that I care – I still care, too much, in fact – but I've grown into my power that I can affect change and turn the wheel rather than be the one directed by change initiated by others.

"We need to investigate," I say and shove with my shoulder against the gate.

It barely budges, but Cass lends her weight, and the gate squeals open in protestation.

If ever there was a haunted house to rival some of the stories Varric has shared, this Chateau d'Onterre is paramount. Beyond the conspicuous wealth, it feels as if we've stepped into the tail end of a tragedy. Our explorations yield a cautionary tale, intended for those who'd wilfully ignore the dangers presented by entanglements with the spirit world.

The place is crawling – in this case in the literal sense – with activity. Lamps flicker on when we enter rooms, fires leaping into life in hearths. Whispers at the edge of our awareness – so much so that even Thom complains that he's hearing things. By the time the creeping undead shuffle across our path, I'm hardly surprised. We dispatch them quickly enough but it's the relentless tide of the things that causes me despair, as if this chateau is a dark beacon for every unclean thing within miles seeking to wear us down through sheer numbers.

By the time we finish off the arcane horror (because of course there has to be some sort of big bad responsible for all this), we're exhausted, and though we'd like nothing more than to head off to camp, dusk has settled and faint pinpricks of stars grace the darkening sky.

Surprisingly, Thom's the one who's pragmatic about things when we're resting in the courtyard.

"Why don't we stay the night, Inquisitor?"

Cass scoffs. "What, have you taken leave of your senses, Rainier?"

Solas glances up at the twilit sky. "He has a point."

"And those _things_ that we killed. What if there're more?" Cass's expression is a mingling of disbelief and disgust.

Thom leans back, stretches his arms so that we can hear the vertebrae in his back pop. "Consider it, Seeker, that if we depart now, it will be fully dark by the time we reach camp. Need I remind you about the bears we encountered on the way here?"

I am burdened to add to the misery, when I remember one of the scouts' reports. "Oh, and the giants. Allegedly not far from here either."

Cass makes a strangled noise. Solas and I trade a glance.

"There are those bedroom suites upstairs," I add, my thoughts way ahead of me. "We could get the hot water going. There was enough fuel still. Just think, the plumbing still works. We could have a bath, a cooked meal that isn't camp rations, and sleep in soft beds."

"You've gone quite mad as well," Cass says.

I grin at her. "Have I? You've seen for yourself. All the original inhabitants of this chateau have either fled or met with some unfortunate end. Who's to stop us from requisitioning their wealth in aid of our cause? After all, if we don't avail ourselves of these luxuries, who will? Some bandits, come scavenging through here once we're gone? Would you rather vermin enjoy the fruits of our labours now that we've taken care of the malignant presence that lurked here?"

Thom rises. "I do believe there was an unopened cask of cider there that had a Fereldan stamp. Orpen's Gold, if I'm not mistaken. A particularly excellent brewery not far from Denerim."

"Ooh, I haven't tasted that one." I find my feet – albeit a bit creakily.

Solas pretends interest in his belt pouch, but not fast enough for me to miss his slight smile.

Cassandra makes a disgusted sound but she's not long in following us to the kitchen, with Solas bringing up the rear.

Our evening meal might not be completely merry – after all, it's difficult to fully relax knowing that the hallways beyond the kitchen are littered with the remains of undead – but it's still a damn sight better than traipsing through the graves at night.

I suppress a delicious shudder imagining that many of the trees have been planted on the final resting place of one of the People. Solas has shown me visions in the Fade, of great battles where Emerald Knights and their lupine companions fought so bravely to forestall their inevitable fall.

Later, when we retire to a luxuriously appointed suite of rooms, I stand by the window and lean out, breathing the night that is filled with the soft soughing of the breeze through the boughs where wood owls trill. Frogs' clinking and chirruping provide a counterpoint to the cricket chorus. In the distance, a frogmouth whoops sadly. Our turns to keep watch will be closer to dawn, when Solas relieves Cassandra, and I eventually relieve him, though I suspect I'll join him in his vigil. My Mark is hurting tonight, and despite my exhaustion, I fear I'll struggle to sleep.

"The night is never still," I say to Solas, who has fallen onto the vast bed, in an uncharacteristically careless pose.

"I'd prefer it if you closed the window so that the night's denizens don't decide to take you up on your invitation for them to come feast on our blood," he replies, his words muffled by the bedding.

I laugh. "When did the vagrant apostate become so concerned with a few bloodthirsty mosquitoes? Or are you secretly a runaway from some noble estate where you were used to feather beds and silk stockings?"

He rolls onto his side so that he can regard me, his expression nearly (but failing) to be stern. "And what is madam the Inquisitor trying to imply? That I was some sort of pampered house elf who wearied of his master's yoke?"

"Well, you were certainly no shem lord astride his magnificent steed aiming to whisk away the hapless Dalish girl, were you? More like she had to employ all her talents to stalk down the wary wild apostate and –" I pounce across the intervening distance, my fingers curled into mock claws, and growl ferociously as I attempt to tickle him.

He's far stronger than me, but I wriggle, bite and poke at him until we're both quite breathless, with me – invariably – pinned beneath him.

His eyes are dark in the low light cast by the candles we've lit. "Would that I could capture this moment for an eternity," he whispers.

"We could run away," I say. "No one would think to find us here. We could enchant vines to grow around this chateau, thick thorns, like in that children's tale with the sleeping princess. We could make it our forever."

"And yet they would come. The world would burn and us with it, vhenan."

"We can dream, can't we?" The immensity of all that waits outside this abandoned dwelling drags at me.

"Dreams may well be all we have in the end, ma lath."

"We can pretend then, at least for one night, can't we?" My voice catches in my throat with the prescience of sorrow. None of this will end well. I feel it in the dull ache of my bones, in the constant gnawing of my cursed Mark.

"Don't cry." He kisses each eye before the tears can form. "I would prefer to remember you well, smiling."

"You speak as if this is already over."

"Everything ends." Inevitability weights those words.

His kiss is slow, lingering, as if he would memorise every inch of me, drawing out the taste of our desire. Our lovemaking is languid, unhurried, as if we would pretend we have all the time in the world. In my dreams this is our castle and he is my lord, and together we rule a kingdom where all is right in our realm. A perfect future for our storm-eyed children to play with wolf pups in a verdant garden where the dog-roses bloom, and lazy bumblebees bump against nodding irises while the cuckoo calls from the oak tree.

Such dreams of afternoons where the sunlight makes golden shafts between the trellised wisteria heavy with blooms. Always flowers. I don't know why I have such a fascination with shem gardens. I don't suppose it matters, does it?

Afterwards, we lie tangled in the satin sheets that still smell faintly of camphor. I listen to Solas's deep, even breaths, feel how his body slackens. Outside, in the passageway, Cass paces, her presence reassuring me that no ill will befall us this night.

I wish I could sleep but I'm too scared to let go of the edge, to lose my awareness of this encapsulated moment.

Dawn will come too soon, as it always does.


	7. Bare-faced Shem

Every time I pass a mirror or a reflective surface, I can't help but stare at the bare-faced shem gazing back at me, at the angular cheekbones, the pale brow and those startled green eyes. Who is she? Her silver hair has been styled in the manner of the Orlesian court, a _fashion_ – Creators be damned – cut long in front, short at the back and often pinned up with beads, ribbons and things. No braids. Oh no, braids are for Dalish savages and the like.

But oh, the sweet, delicious irony, that I once bore Mythal's vallaslin in fine verdant lines. Save now I have her well whispering in my head. With little effort I can almost understand what they say. I have traded the obvious for the esoteric; I cannot escape her yet I cannot reconcile her with that witch Flemeth either. Sometimes I fear I've lost everything in the turbulence of revelation upon revelation.

I am a ghost within this mountain fastness that is named Skyhold. Too much has changed and I am adrift, allowing my companions – my friends – to steer me about as if I'm some living doll. They avoid discussion of the missing vallaslin (I mean, really, what could they possibly say?) and they don't deliver any comment on the yawning chasm between me and Solas. Yet they help to move the Inquisitor from War Table to Orlesian soiree to Fereldan noble's hunt then back to the keep on the mountain where I pass judgment on lackwits and addle-pated fools.

I say all the things they need to hear which may not want to be the things they _want_ to hear because yes, I'm still the Inquisitor, despite having had my heart torn away. I am still the leader of what is possibly the most powerful military force in southern Thedas. Some sort of pride keeps me moving, no matter how twisted it is.

 _He_ has retreated from me. I am "Inquisitor" in polite Shemlen syllables. He is a stranger since that night he set me free, and I can't help but think of the fledgling, nurtured close to his heart but then flung away out of some misguided notion that it is better for me to try my wings on my own. To leap from the nest. Look, look, I am _free_ now. I have no slave markings on the outside, but let's not speak of that which churns on the inside.

Oh, he has _promised_ we will talk after, that all will be explained, but what shall I do in the meanwhile with my all my hope spilling out like blood? What makes him think he knows what's for my own good? I cannot bear to look upon him yet I ache to meet his gaze. At every opportunity I walk longer routes if it means I'll avoid the rotunda and the weight of his presence where he goes on as he always has, as if nothing is wrong. Everything is wrong.

All the while I pray that he'll stray across my path. He never does.

Then there is the matter of Cullen. Poor, sweet fool of a man. I shouldn't encourage him but for his kindness. Like me, he's broken. He doesn't talk about his past, but I can sense the burden pressing down on his heart. When we walk the battlements, ostensibly to discuss Inquisition-related business – but more that both of us _need_ to feel the sky, have our lungs filled with snow-frosted air – it's inevitable that we'll lean on the crenulations, gaze across the snowfields and discuss other matters. He has his good days, but I'm there when he's taken ill, and calls for me alone. I sit by his bedside, supplement the remedies with what paltry magical healing I possess. That small triumph when the fever breaks, he smiles faintly and that scar tugs at his lip.

Unlike Solas, he _wants_ to know about what life on the Marches was like. His blush, when I tell him of Mihren, goads me to adding fanciful details purely for my pleasure to see him squirm. There is a _goodness_ to the man that warms me, eases some of the hurt, though I can't help but wonder if there's not some small part of me that is seeking Cullen's company in the vain hope that it will somehow hurt Solas.

Later, when I unburden myself to Dorian, the Vint accuses me of being a shameless hussy, but his approval of my attempts at trying to move on strengthen me. After all, I cannot spend my entire life pining after someone who can't make up his blighted mind, or so Dorian says, and I repeat the words as if they will somehow make this a reality. Life is not all bad, I can remind myself at moments such as these.

Yet night-time is an ordeal, however, because then I'm truly on my own. With events winding to what appears to be a nasty, bloody conclusion, I prefer not to dull myself in drink yet I wish for some sort of soporific to nullify the constant ache of the Mark. At my worst, I writhe under the covers. I've even gone so far to bite the affected flesh, to sink my teeth into the skin up until the point where I leave bruises. Anything to distract from the ugly throbbing deep in the marrow that mocks me. Would that I had never been afflicted by magic.

Crying doesn't help, yet in the darkest hours, there is no one to kiss those tears away.

I don't need a seer to tell me that we are rushing to a cataclysmic confrontation with one who'd make himself our new god. I don't expect to survive the encounter and in that possible outcome lies a peculiar kind of comfort. This too shall pass.

How did the Hero of Ferelden feel when she kissed her beloved goodbye for the last time? Did she tell him she'd see him soon? Did they laugh, knowing that she lied, that she _was_ going to her death willingly? Impossible choices. My decision that left Hawke in the Fade, did he carry this burden with the knowledge that his life was measured out in mere minutes as he faced Nightmare? Varric's face when he realised Hawke _wasn't_ coming back. That heartbroken "Where is Hawke?" I'll carry with me to my death.

Will he ask, "Where is Rosala?" Will someone remark on the fresh pain that imprints itself on his features?

I hate this. I am being melodramatic. Nothing is certain.

In one of Varric's stories, Solas cradles the Inquisitor's limp form, his teeth bared in a grimace of pain. Or in another, Solas merely looks upon Rosala's mangled corpse and turns away, his expression inscrutable. Either way, it won't matter to me for my spirit will have fled and I'll be beyond pain, beyond love.

And if I fail, none of this will matter in the least.

And if I live? What then?

Will we scatter to the quarters with the threat removed? Will the invisible filaments that have held us together through calamity and disaster come undone? I expect they will.

Where does that leave me? What are my plans?

Either Cassandra or Leliana may sit on the Sunburst Throne. Varric talks about rebuilding Kirkwall. Dorian dreams of change in Tevinter, now that he sees what we've wrought here. Sera, well… Sera is Sera. As foul-mouthed as she is. She has her Jennies. Bull's loyalty extends to whether we've work for him and his Chargers. Neither Morrigan nor Vivienne will linger, I don't think. Both are too conniving, have too many secrets. Cole will haunt me still, I expect, and in his own awkward manner try to ease my pain – though of late I've avoided him for precisely that reason. Thom… Well, he'd walk blindfolded through the Fade for me if need be. Josephine and Cullen will stand by me until Skyhold crumbles. There is comfort in that.

Solas does not bear consideration.

We will talk.

I hold that much hope, though I doubt the answers I'll obtain will offer me any solace.

And yet I grasp after that particular thread, for it is my slender hope that somehow things will be resolved, that there will be a way forward.

There is no chateau in an enchanted forest.

There is no bonding.

There are no storm-eyed children.

Whatever burden he carries, he feels he cannot share it with me, though I would that he allow me into his confidence, no matter how heavy his troubles. I revisit that night in the glade; I dream it, wondering whether anything I could've said or done would have changed anything. Yet there is no going back, and once the truth has been revealed, to return to the way things were is inconceivable. It's like trying to force a tree back into the seed from which it was sown.

I may call Solas out as a liar, but the well's voices whisper, and I know his words for what they are. The truth – the bare-faced truth.

Oh Creators, let this all be over soon.

If this is freedom, I weep for that Dalish girl who once skipped stones across the mirror surface of Lake Luthias and so innocently teased her apostate mage.


	8. Absence

Josie has outdone herself with the preparations – fine vintages are flowing, sourced from as afar as Tevinter; Antivan chocolatiers have supplied a surfeit of sweetness; Fereldan mead adds the taste of pale gold. Everyone wants to speak with the Inquisitor, who has ascended to the rarefied heights inhabited by the Hero of Ferelden and the Champion of Kirkwall.

 _At what cost?_ I have to bite back those words before I let them loose.

Instead I smile and say the appropriate things when needed. Vivienne should be proud of how well I'm playing the Grand Game. Who would have thought a savage Dalish elf could be tamed? Could be squeezed into a corseted gown and move, gazelle-like on impossible heels? They must be so relieved my vallaslin no longer mar my face.

I am poised, as taut as a bowstring. Few if any morsels of food pass my painted lips, and I sip sparingly of my wine. While I make eye contact with whomever I speak to, I can't help but cut glances across the Great Hall.

 _He won't come back this time. Stop fooling yourself._

In one of Varric's stories, Solas will be standing off to one side, a goblet of wine held carelessly while he watches. We'll see each other, he'll incline his head to indicate that he's noted me, and yet later, when I'm ready to retire, he'll be waiting to accompany me upstairs.

This is not one of Varric's stories, and the pain where my heart used to be is rivalled only by the steady throb of the Mark. Not song, stories nor dancing succeed one whit to take the edge off this pain, but I've become adept at wearing masks.

Dorian is the only one who sees right through me, and in one unguarded moment, he pulls his arm around me the way Solas used to, and squeezes me to him. I nearly lose my composure then and there. As midnight approaches, I begin my gradual sweep of the Great Hall, mentally checking off the list of people Josie insists I need to speak to before I retire to my quarters.

The group of musicians has engaged in a lively reel, of fiddle, drum and flute, and there is much dancing and gaiety, which gives me the opportunity I require to slip away. Cassandra and Josie are the last to whom I speak, and I finally let my mask slip.

"My Mark pains me," I say with a grimace.

My admission has the desired effect. Cassandra shoos off an Orlesian noble whose name escapes me yet who clearly wishes to be seen talking to me, and Josie puts her arm around me and guides me to my quarters.

"Shall I arrange for a healer?" she asks as we ascend the stairs.

I shake my head. "I just need to rest. It's been a long week, and I'm not yet recovered fully from…"

"I understand."

 _You don't._

Despair gnaws again. I should be downstairs; I should be allowing Cullen that dance I promised him. There are a dozen if not more things I _should_ be doing, but I won't. I can't.

I can almost hear Sera berate me, saying something ridiculous like, _"Be kind te y'self, y'know. You're runnin' outta spoons, quizzy."_

I sit on the bed while Josie lights lamps, but when she goes to draw the curtains, I interrupt her.

"Leave those open. I'd like to see the stars."

The scar where the breach used to be is a nacreous reminder of a battle hard won.

"Are you certain?" Josie's frowning.

"Yes." My voice is small. "Please spread the word that I'm not to be disturbed this night."

She hesitates, and I can sense her suspicions churning. Will the Inquisitor do something monumentally stupid this? Does she possess the propensity for self-harm?

Would that I could.

How do I reassure her?

"Promise me that if there's _anything_ you need, you'll call me. It doesn't matter that it's during the dead hours. My door is always open."

I nod, my throat thick, and begin to pull the pins out of my hair. She hesitates by the door, clearly conflicted, but if I give in and allow her to stay, I'll never let her leave and my kohl-stained tears will ruin her blouse.

"Rosala?"

"Thank you, Josie. There is no need to worry." I bite the inside of my cheek until my eyes smart.

The door snicks shut and I breathe out, cradle my face in my hands. It is over. The entire ordeal.

I rise and make my way to my balcony. The crisp, icy air chases my tears away, fills me with the mountains' vastness, the fathomless sky and its litter of stars.

The tips of my ears tingle, as does my nose. I shouldn't stand out here too long, but it's one of those rare, wind-still spring nights, and I aim to take advantage of this pause in the eternal dance.

I'm alive.

That alone is marvel enough. It hasn't been necessary for me to make the supreme sacrifice any hero can only make once.

Below, the denizens of Skyhold and her guests celebrate with shrieks of laughter. The music drifts upward, frenetic. People are clapping, whooping, and judging from the racket, thumping on the tabletops. They're all alive and face a less uncertain future because of what we've wrought. Would that I could draw comfort from that, because my despair keeps dragging me back to the obvious.

 _Damn you, Solas._

He's not coming back this time. Of course not.

His face when he picked up the fragments of his orb; I have never seen the man more unhappy than that moment, as if his entire reason for being had ground to a halt. What if I'd not turned my back on him for that instant? What if I'd tried to comfort him instead of reassuring the others that I lived? Would he still have slipped away?

In my heart of hearts, I know he would have.

Why, ma lath?

 _What we had was real_.

Those words rise on a tide of bitterness. If what we'd had was real, then why leave?

 _Where are you now? Do you also gaze up at the stars and wonder about me? Do I at the very least share that much with you?_

In my mind's eye, he wanders ancient ruins, a lone figure carrying only a pack and his staff, who pauses, perhaps with a sharp intake of breath as the venom of a particular memory strikes him. Creators, this sounds like the sort of story Varric would tell.

 _You didn't have to do this alone_.

Whatever happens next, the Dalish girl has gone, a ghost flitting between faded aravels. Who is this Rosala Lavellan, with her Mark? Arrow-pierced, scarred, burnt, bitten? All in the name of the Inquisition. She hasn't bent or broken. She has become something more than the sum of her parts, and she will endure.

The tears flow freely then, their trails freezing on my cheeks, but I allow my sorrow to run its course so that I can mourn for all that has passed, so that I can empty myself. Tomorrow will be the first of many days where I must stand on my own, whatever may come.

By the time shivers wrack me and my teeth chatter, I make my way back inside, intent only on drawing a hot bath and somehow extricating myself from the gown Vivienne insisted would best display my modest assets.

I notice the pebble on my dresser precisely because it's an object out of place among the scattering of cosmetics and oddments. The stone is almost perfectly round, smooth and pale – river tumbled. It rests in the centre of my palm as if it always fit there. Why would someone leave a pebble there? I don't recall…

 _Oh_.

That evening, skipping pebbles on the shores of Lake Luthias. I close my hand around the stone, allow my lids to flutter shut as I recall the scent of blood lotus and feel the water once against lapping against my toes.


	9. Leave-taking

One by one they go, heeding the siren call of other fates, as I knew they would. Leliana is the first, called to the Sunburst Throne – a reassuring placement with regard our position as the Inquisition. Vivienne is next, gone to establish a new Circle that I suspect may rival the college Fiona is bringing into being. Things are going to become interesting for mages in Thedas, and this pleases me. Cassandra, Sera, Cullen and Josie remain steadfast, but as more of our companions depart, it's not quite the same. The purpose that kept us together has run dry, and without it, we're droplets of quicksilver scattering to the quarters.

I release Thom from his debt, and when I do hear reports related to his activities, they fill me with a warm glow of satisfaction – he is more than making reparations for his past sins. When Bull and his Chargers are offered a lucrative job for a Nevarran noble, who am I to stand in their way? Varric returns to Kirkwall, no longer able to put off his involvement in the rebuilding that needs to be done. The rate he's going, he's going to end up the Viscount soon. I'm not sure how he feels about _that_. Morrigan vanishes in the night, taking her eluvian with her. I don't know whether to be relieved; I never did feel comfortable around her. We were always sniping at each other in any case, and I never did appreciate her sense of entitlement when it came to my people's heritage. The eluvians are nothing but a source of trouble.

Dorian is the last to fly, and he hesitates until mid-autumn, when I nearly have to push him to book his passage.

"If you don't depart now, you'll never go," I tell him.

"And deprive you of my glittering personality?" he quips. "However will you cope?"

"You'll spend the entire winter, when we're snowed in, berating me that I didn't encourage you before it was too late and your toes froze off."

"Another winter in Skyhold…" he muses. "Brrrr!" Then his expression becomes haunted. "But will you be…"

"I'll be fine. I've lasted half a year already. It's only going to get easier as time passes."

"I worry about you." He reaches out, clasps my left hand, which tingles at the contact.

My Mark has, oddly enough, been quiescent for the past while. Occasionally it sparks, hurts a little when my emotions run high, but I pray it's going to remain dormant. There have been no more rifts to close since Corypheus's defeat. No reason to activate the Mark's magic.

"I'll be fine. I have Cass, Cullen and Josie. Cole is about. I'm certain Sera will get me into trouble when things get too stale."

"Please do me a favour and shag Cullen's brains out, will you? Make it your pet project this winter."

"Dorian!" I say, mortified, and glance about the library to see if anyone has noticed.

Fiona stares a little too fixedly at the cover of a book she's been perusing not far from our niche, the tips of her ears pink.

# # #

A week later, we're standing at the Redcliffe docks, and I suspect both our eyes are gleaming a little too brightly. I want to tell my dearest friend to stay, but I must let him go, just like I have let Solas go – or am trying to, in any case.

Cullen has accompanied us, and he's given me and Dorian space for our farewell now that he's shaken the mage's hand and shared an awkward hug.

"It won't be forever," Dorian said. "I expect they'll find some sort of dubious way of rewarding me for my work and I'll be sent back to mediate with you savages."

"I look forward to the day," I say, and I mean it.

He draws me close and holds me fast, so that I'm enveloped in the expensive musk perfume he prefers (that I know will cling to my hair, my clothes, for hours after, along with the phantom of his touch).

"Be safe, Dorian, and thank you. You are a true friend."

He smiles, and for once, has nothing grandiose to add. I suspect he's as choked up as I am.

We don't say goodbye. I refuse to say goodbye, yet I stand on the jetty for a long while, until the schooner's red sail has vanished around the headland, and the first spits of rain wet my face.

"Rosala, if we leave it much later, it's going to be dark before we get to the stopover." Cullen's right behind me. So quiet I hadn't heard him approach.

"And if we book rooms here and leave at dawn?"

"If we ride hard we could possibly reach Haven late afternoon. Would you prefer that?"

"Yes." I can't stop staring at the horizon, and I'm not sure whether I'm blinded by tears or raindrops. I can't help but feel as if something inside me is irrevocably shattered, too fragmented to put back together again.

The sky presses down, seething with heavy grey cloud that obscures the mountains, eats up the forests and brings a wind laden with moisture so that by the time Cullen puts his cloak around my shoulders, and guides me back to the town, the rain beats down in near horizontal sheets, and we are both soaked to the skin once we arrive at our accommodation.

It's peculiar to be here, only the two of us travelling incognito and not on any official Inquisition business. That's not to say that our people aren't looking out for us, but for once there's comfort to be garnered from the imagined anonymity.

A tall, blond ex-military man and his slight, elven travel companion. Booked into adjoining rooms in a well-to-do lakeside inn. No, nothing suspicious about that. Well-appointed rooms overlook the docks, where folks are locking away their stalls and checking on the moorings of their vessels, because there's a storm about to lash the town. I bath, get changed into fresh clothing, and send away my wet things to have them dried.

A knock sounds at the door between our suites and startles me out of my reverie by the hearth.

"Yes?" I query.

"Can I…" Cullen sounds as if he's having second thoughts about disturbing me.

"Creators," I mutter. "Come in!" I say loud enough for him to hear.

He steps inside, peers about as if he's expecting a quillback to attack him, then hangs at the threshold. "I was wondering whether…" And then he scrubs at the back of his neck, suddenly the chantry boy rather than commander.

I bite the inside of my lip to prevent a smirk. I enjoy his discomfort too much. Dorian's request that I "shag his brains out" brings a little heat to my cheeks. If ever I'd have the chance – away from wagging tongues and our routine in Skyhold – and a prime opportunity that may not repeat itself soon.

If anything, that little shrinking Dalish girl is so far removed from who I am now, the idea, the curiosity to take up the challenge doesn't fill me with such dread as it would have a scant year or so ago.

"Would you like a drink?" I ask him. "Come in, take a seat."

"I don't want to impose."

"Creators, Cullen, I've seen you butt-ass naked streaking out of the Herald and _you've_ dragged me bleeding off battlefields. You're not imposing."

He colours, but obeys, and seats himself on one of the armchairs by the hearth.

"They've got perry, by the looks of it, and something…" I lift the stopper of the ceramic bottle. "Ugh, some sort of fennel liqueur. Probably Orlesian. Disgusting."

He wrinkles his nose. "I'll have some perry. My thanks."

I pour us each a measure, and make sure our fingers brush when I pass him the tumbler, then sit opposite him. My feet I place as close as possible to the fireplace so that I can absorb the warmth, like a salamander. I even wriggle my toes, then slide him a glance.

He's watching my feet, the glass half-raised to his lips.

 _Oh, Dorian, this will be easier than you thought_.

Yet I'm in no rush. I sip the perry, grimace at the way it burns and makes me think of summer evenings. "So, _commander_ , have you got plans yourself? You haven't taken any leave since we resolved this whole business with Corypheus."

Cullen blinks, makes eye contact then sips his drink. "I haven't really given this much thought."

"You should."

"Do _you_ have plans?" he counters.

Ah, deflecting.

"I have…some."

His gaze grows intense. "I-I… Oh Maker's breath there is no easy way for me to ask this. How are _you_ , Rosala, I mean with this whole thing with…"

"With my sad apostate mage?" I huff out a breath, take another sip. _Twist that rusty blade_.

"I d-didn't mean –"

I hold up a hand. "It's quite all right. We need to clear the air." I hold his gaze, fight the urge to turn away from his warm amber eyes. "Whatever we...had…" _It was real_.

My eyes blur with those damned tears that haven't ever quite gone away.

"Fenedhis," I whimper, set down my drink on the side table and hide my face behind my hands.

 _Dorian, I can't do this_.

Choking sobs shake me, but what undoes me completely is Cullen, who closes the distance between us and pulls me into his arms so that I can cry myself out. He makes soothing noises, like I've heard him make to quieten frightened harts. His hand, smoothing my still-damp hair is steady, promising protection. The heat from his body warms me in a way Solas's never did.

"I'm going to ri-rip your heart out, Cullen," I wail. "I'm bad for you."

"Don't say that. Hush now," he soothes. "I won't leave you."


	10. Exalted

It's almost like old times, yet not. Halamshiral in the spring is a riot of blooms in perfectly manicured flower beds, the trees newly garbed in their fresh green mantles and there's a sweetness in the air despite the bitterness of what lies ahead. Orlais seeks to collar us. Ferelden wants to see us disband, and I can't help but agree that we've served our purpose. At any rate, the Exalted Council will resolve matters, one way or another.

The Inquisition is a beast that has gradually run out of momentum. We sprawl across southern Thedas and beyond, our tentacles everywhere. A tree falls in the Emerald Graves, and we hear about it. A caged bird sings in Val Royeaux, and we know which elegy. We can share the exact poison a certain duchess used to flavour her husband's tea.

Mostly, I'm tired. It's a combination of putting out the constant small fires – petty squabbles – and also the Thing I Won't Talk About to all save Cullen.

My Mark.

It's been getting worse. After nearly a year and a half without giving any trouble, it's started up again with a dull, deep-rooted throbbing. Often, the afflicted limb goes numb. Green sparks crackle around the fingers. Then the pain burrows through the marrow, leaving me wide-eyed and sweating at night. I'd prayed for equilibrium of sorts, but evidently that's been in vain. I've scoured the library, have requested that Dorian inquire discreetly in Minrathous, but so far nothing reassuring has turned up.

Solas knows what to do. Damn him.

My imaginings furnish me with a dozen ways to die. In my nightmares, I _become_ a rift, dissolving in Cullen's arms in an explosion of malignant green crackling fire that vomits up demons and worse. The world burns with me as every evil in the Fade pours out through the space in which my frail body used to exist.

Nearly every night it's the same – I scream myself awake and if it weren't for Cullen, I'd no doubt have inadvertently destroyed Skyhold with gouts of fire. He holds me, smooths the hair from my sweat-slick brow and whispers pretty lies that it's all going to be better.

Whatever the nobles throw at me during this council, it's _nothing_ compared to the battle I wage within. Bring it on.

We have time to socialise beforehand, as people posture, measure up their opponents. The Great Game at its best, to see and be seen. Our smiles bare teeth. Hands unconsciously stray to belts where we would carry daggers.

Two years have wrought such changes in my friends. I wish I could say it's like old times, but it's not. The urgency that once drove us together has gone; this is a time for closure, for endings. For the happily ever afters. Yet seeing them again reminds me of why we fought so hard. Love. Loyalty. As tawdry as it sounds. No one can take away what we shared, and no matter where our paths lead us from here, we'll always trade knowing glances, a lingering clasp of a shoulder, a particular quirk of a smile. We _know_ what we've been through. We've been tempered by dragon fire.

However, when Cullen asks me to marry him, I lose the strength to stand. It's like he's knocked all the breath out of me and I have to take a nearby seat. The galumphing fool of a mabari hound that's attached itself to him lays its great, slobbering head in my lap, and I ruffle its ears.

"Cullen…"

He's all bashful chantry boy, blushing, stammering apologies.

 _I can't_ , I want to tell him, but my world is disintegrating as fast as I want to hold onto it. Quicksilver.

How much time do we have for happiness?

 _I'm going to tear out your heart_.

He wants me to marry him. My breath rattles in my throat, my world constricts, grows dark around the edges.

Two years have passed without word. If Solas truly cares about how real our fucking love is, he'd not have left me. There. The bare-faced truth of the matter sharper than any blade, burning hotter than red lyrium through veins.

Cullen isn't Solas, but I love him. That is true. A different kind of love, for sure, but love nonetheless.

How could I not love a man who's displayed such patience? Such loyalty? Who's been there to hold me when I simply can't any more? His quiet strength, his adoration burns brighter than the sun, and selfish that I am, I cannot turn my face from him. Without Cullen I am nothing, I have no reason to continue, and I bury that burden of self-loathing as deeply as possible.

Old hurts are sealed beneath thickened scar tissue, but they're still there. Old betrayals are easier to ignore when I can distract myself, pretend, and yet somewhere along the way, love has set down roots, grown into a crooked tree bearing bittersweet fruit.

Oh, he knows, he can see the shadows at war in my expression. Yet he places his hand over mine, squeezes lightly.

"I understand if you can't."

I blink at the tears that want to roll down my cheeks. The Inquisitor cannot be seen to give in to unseemly emotion in such a public place.

"Oh, Cullen. I will. I _do_." With those words comes release, my heart opens. "For whatever time we have left, I'll have you by my side. I choose _you_."

His smile is radiant and observers be damned, he crushes me to him so that I can lose myself in his embrace. He is my pillar, this human who's brought me a gift of unexpected sunshine at a time when I believed that all hope was lost to darkness.


	11. While We Wait, Hold Our Breath

_I suspect you have questions…_

Those words rattle around in my head for days, for weeks after the catastrophic hunt through the eluvians. That evening in the ruins has haunted me since my return, my resignation, and withdrawal, burnt across the inside of my lids so that every time I close my eyes, I see _his_ face.

I can still taste his kiss, and feel the impression of his hand holding the one that is no longer there. An old, old wound has been ripped open.

Ferelden has what it wants. The Inquisition is no more. Let the Qun overrun southern Thedas once they're done with Tevinter. They are nothing in the face of Solas's ire. I cannot unsee that macabre crop of statues in the elven ruins nor forget how my foe turned to stone even as she tried to spear my vhenan. The storm is coming, but my work here is done.

Only a fool would stand against the Dread Wolf.

# # #

We are granted a sun-drenched valley, a title in the Hinterlands – just rewards for services rendered, or perhaps a way to buy our retirement from involvement in politics. The manor house is modest – red tiled-roof, ochre-painted walls, a wraparound balcony – perched upon a hill punctuated with sentinel cypresses and overlooking terraced fields and pear orchards. Bumblebees nudge against nodding irises. A wisteria weeps purple blooms. Antivan roses offer splashes of deep crimson. Like blood, but sweet. Pretty as a picture. Cullen has his horses, plays the minor noble. He smiles, talks about children. Mercifully my womb doesn't quicken – perhaps a legacy of my time as the bearer of the Anchor. I am barren, in more ways than the obvious.

I learn to cope with the missing arm; though I'm not whole, I'm alive. The pain isn't physical. I lie by omission, pretend that by the time I confronted our enemy, Solas had fled, and my malfunctioning Mark took off my arm in a final explosion.

How much longer until the Veil comes down, I don't know, but black wings bring ill whispers from further afield. The remnants of the Grey Wardens are mustering. A high dragon has been sighted in the Western Approach.

This is not Varric's storybook ending, not truly. I _know_ ; I'm part of the quiet conspiracy of elves. Whether I'll live to see the return of these glory days Solas dreams of, that remains to be discovered. I survived the explosion in the Temple of Sacred Ashes, didn't I? In the meanwhile, I enjoy what sunshine there is. I say the things that make Cullen smile, because his happiness takes the edge off my despair and lets me pretend that all is well with the world.

Let another hero rise out of my ashes if they have the will. This is where my tale ends.

At night, _I'm not alone_. My human husband clasps me to his chest as if I'm the most precious, fragile doll. His heartbeat steadies me, guides me into my dreaming. He is glad that I can sleep, and sleep I do – often well past sun-up.

And oh, such dreams where I wander the Fade and behold wonders untold. Graceful glass spires and tumbledown monuments. Arches held up by memories of times gone by. Vir Dirthara calls me, and I answer her siren summons, spend hours paging through forgotten tomes and learn such secrets never to be spoken of in the waking world. In the Fade I am whole, with a left hand that can grasp and flex.

I know no pain.

I'm surrounded by echoes, lost voices and sighs, but there are occasions when I feel a shadow brush my own and I'll glance up from a faded volume. Blue skies gleam between broken archways that jut like teeth. The surface of a nearby eluvian ripples, but stills even while I watch.

 _I'm never alone_.

# # #

 **Author's note:** Thank you to all of you who've read this story and offered their favs, PMs, follows, comments and kudos. So often, writing is a solitary occupation, especially for this relatively obscure author of dark fantasy who often feels as if her novels plunge into the Abyss after publication. To know that you have enjoyed reading this fic has filled my heart with gladness. You have my deepest gratitude for having come this far.

"Ma Vhenan Suledin" was born out of my mixed feelings upon completing Trespasser. If and when I invest myself in another round of DA:I I suspect I'll probably step right back into the black hole that is the Solavellan romance. It's simply too delicious, however much anguish it causes me even to consider our sad elven apostate.


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